


Three Twelve AD

by MorganAW



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: CC By-SA, Hurt Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Ineffable Husbands (Good Omens), M/M, Protective Crowley (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-22
Updated: 2019-10-22
Packaged: 2020-12-28 03:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,903
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21130388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MorganAW/pseuds/MorganAW
Summary: Historians will note that 313 AD was a watershed year for the rise of Christianity, but it was really the events of 312 at the battle of the Milvian bridge that clinched it. What historians don't know, what nobody but a certain tortured demon knows, is exactlyhowpivotal that moment was in the battle between Good and Evil. It was at that battle that a stray patch of hellfire hit the wrong angel and that close call led him to realize his priorities and permanently effected his job performance, forever giving an advantage on the side of good. (Crowley accidentally hurts Aziraphale and does not handle it well)





	Three Twelve AD

**Author's Note:**

> Licensing Note: Based on Characters and story lines from _Good Omens_ by Neil Gaimon and Terry Pratchet as well as the Amazon adaptation. Text from the book is in green, text from the TV adaptation is in blue. If you would like to turn off the colored text, click "Hide Creator’s Style" at the top of the page. The tense, pronouns, or wording of these quotes may be slightly modified to fit the scene. All original content and plot for _Three Twelve AD_ is released under a [Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/) license by Morgan A. Wyndham.

312 AD Rome

“Max, you don’t mind if I call you Max, do you?” Crowley asked casually, at the emperor’s glare he adjusted and continued, “Maxentius it is then. The point is, Maxentius, you have a far greater claim to rule than Constantine does. The greedy bastard ordered your father to kill himself and now he wants to take you out too, you can’t let him get away with that! You are Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maxentius Augustus, son of Marcus Aurelius Avlerius Maximianus Herculius and you will defeat your enemy!” Roman aristocrats always got all puffed up when you used their full names and ancestry. The emperor, predictably, rallied and stalked out to deliver a similarly rousing speech to his troops.

This job wasn’t a curse or temptation so much as a bit of demonic influence on the battle. The home office had been very pleased with the progress of the Roman civil wars. They were fond of civil wars – very messy, brother against brother, taking arms against your own people – civil wars were very good for the business of being bad. Crowley was aware that it didn’t really matter which side of this conflict he was on, as long as the conflict continued Hell would be happy.

Maxentius completed his speech and mounted his horse. Crowley eyed his own horse – a big, black, hulk of a beast who was eternally (infernally?) cranky – with a sigh he mounted and followed the emperor into battle. He far preferred temptation to sowing discord. Unlike other demons he wasn’t into the whole blood and human suffering bit but he was prepared for just another run-of-the-mill battle right up to the point where they crested a hill and saw the symbol adorning their opponent’s across the Milvian bridge.

Was that … the sign of Christ? Fucking _Christograms?_ Fuck. He’d met that kid and was fairly certain that Jesus – “Peace and Love” – Christ wouldn’t appreciate an abbreviation of his name plastered all over instruments of war. 

Worse than that, for Crowley anyway, was that this made his job much harder. This was no longer a matter of just poking a beehive. The Romans had slowly become more tolerant of Christians as of late but an emperor taking a stance for Christianity was a game changer. Constantine was an actual threat to his side now and that meant that Crowley needed to make more of an effort in this conflict than just inciting violence. 

As the battle began, Crowley noticed Maxentius’ archers lighting some of the arrows before firing. With a wave of his hand he boosted the flames with hellfire. That should help the cause. He was pleased with the outcome for all of thirty seconds before he heard a familiar but out of place voice primly say: “Oh dear!” from the opposite bank as a flaming arrow struck a cavalryman’s saddle. After a moment the man broke into screams as the fire caught his tunic. Crowley nearly felt the fire in his own gut as he watched the white-blond head – so out of place among the Roman cavalry – lurch forward before sliding off of a pristine white horse still howling in pain. 

“Aziraphale!” Crowley shouted desperately as he urged his hell beast of a horse forward. 

**”Aziraphale!”** The cry was echoed behind him by dozens of angry men as some sort of war cry as they too began charging the bridge … right, he was technically commanding a unit in this farce. He didn’t have the time to deal with thick humans right now. With a wave of his hand he extinguished the hellfire that was consuming his best friend, inadvertently extinguishing all of the fires simultaneously. A nod of his head redirected his unit to the bridge while he charged straight for the Tiber river. With a menacing glance and a small miracle or two, his reluctant horse was forced to gallop right over the surface. 

Upon reaching the other bank Crowley’s horse – indignantly opposed to demonic mind control forcing him to disregard self-preservation – skidded to a stop and threw him off. “No, no, no, no, No!” Crowley muttered as he crawled over to Aziraphale’s still form, ignoring the pains on his left side where he’d inelegantly landed. As he assessed the damage he saw that the Angel’s leather cuirass apparently protected his torso but his legs and arms were badly burnt. “You will not die, do you understand me?” Crowley yelled as he ran his hands over the burns. Hellfire injuries to an angel were more resistant to miraculous healing, but the demon persevered. Once the red blistered skin was restored to it’s usual divine perfection, he looked expectantly at the angel’s face but Aziraphale was still unconscious. “Angel,” he shouted slapping his face a bit to rouse him, “come on Angel, it can’t end like this.” 

He got no response. He shifted behind Aziraphale and lifted him up, cradling his body. He’d healed all of the wounds he could see, so now he just held him radiating healing energy. “You can’t leave me here alone, Angel,” his voice broke. 

Had he discorporated? With a shaking hand he felt for a pulse but between the clamor of the battle raging above them and Crowley’s own rising desperation it was impossible to be certain. If the hellfire hadn’t consumed his flesh, it surely couldn’t have consumed his soul, right? While there _had_ been a conflict of sorts between Heaven and Hell since forever, it had turned into a grand game of chess using the humans as pawns since Eden and it was rare these days that an angel or demon actually died in hellfire or holy water. He didn’t really know the technicalities for destroying celestial beings. An arrow whizzed by them and Crowley instinctively wrapped his wings around them to protect Aziraphale.

“Think, think, _think!_ you ssstupid, evil, sssnake,” he muttered to himself, unconsciously rocking Aziraphale’s body as if he could be any comfort to his unconscious friend. As if he could be of any use to anyone after killing the only being in existence who was ever genuinely pleased to see him. _This_ was what Crowley got for growing comfortable, for enjoying Earth, for enjoying his angel’s company, for thinking that he deserved anything but pain and suffering and despair after the fall. “C’mon Crowley, you have to fixss this,” he ordered himself, curling tighter around Aziraphale, “I can’t think in all of thisss racket!” With one hand still holding Aziraphale he raised the other and brought it down on the ground with a growl. The rocky river bank gave way to soft sand beneath his fist as the chaotic battle was replaced with a calm desert.

He gently lowered Aziraphale down onto the sand and hovered over him, resting an ear against his chest while two fingers sought out his wrist to see if his corporal heart was still beating. “C’mon Angel, I know your heart doesn’t strictly need to beat, but I need to know if this body’s still functioning!” After a few excruciating moments where Crowley held his breath and paused his own racing heartbeat so they didn’t get muddled together, he finally detected a pulse. “Oh, thank Go… thank Satan … Thank Someone!” he breathed out.

Sitting up on his knees beside his – thankfully still alive – angel, Crowley brought his hands to either side of his head. Clearly it wasn’t the wounds from the fire that were keeping him unconscious, so he focused his healing energy on the brain. “C’mon, C’mon, Come On, Angel, I know you’re still in there, you’ve just got to wake up,” he said in frustration. Without his knowledge or permission his thumbs began gently caressing Aziraphale’s temples and his voice softened, “you don’t even _like_ to sleep Angel, Hell of a time for a nap … I know we’re enemies. I know you’re good and pure and wonderful and I’m … me. But I’ve always related far more to you than any of that lot down below. It’s been just the two of us up here – well, down here for you I suppose – for so long that the sides didn’t really seem to matter and I got careless. The humans came and went in the blink of an eye but _you_ were a constant presence. Even halfway across the world I could always feel your presence on earth. A beacon of light that I had no right to bask in but was drawn to like a moth to flame – the last little bit of the divine that wasn’t wrested from me.” __

_ _He felt tears streaming down his cheeks, but he could hardly hear the demonic voice in the back of his head that rebelled against such things over his fear of the deep dark abyss that losing Aziraphale would open in his life. He’d been telling himself for centuries that living on Earth among the humans was what preserved that small scrap of decency that set him apart from the other demons but looking down at Aziraphale’s lifeless body he knew that was just a convenient lie. It was caused by shy smiles, and banter, and bickering conversations, and kind blue eyes, and shared meals … they may be few and far between but even these scraps had been enough to sustain him. _ _

_ _“I need you Aziraphale, you can’t leave me. I need you. Fuck, I might even love you …” The realization hit him like a ton of bricks. Of course he wouldn’t figure it out until it was too late … “This can’t be it. It can’t be over. I don’t think I can live on this world without you. I need you … I need you to open your goddamn eyes!”_ _

_ _“Don’t ...” came a groggy voice beneath him. Crowley’s eyes snapped back down and finally met those soft, wonderful, blue eyes._ _

_ _“Angel! You’re awake! Don’t what?” His stomach dropped … how much had the angel heard? Was he saying ‘don’t _need_ me’ or worse, ‘don’t _love me’?__ _

“Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain,” Aziraphale said squinting up at the blue sky above. Crowley shifted his wings to shade him from the sun. ”Get behind me foul fiend,” he said indulgently, towing the party line without any fear that Crowley would take him seriously.

Crowley rolled his eyes. “Sure Angel, but only so I can help you up,” he shifted and placed an arm behind Aziraphale’s shoulders to assist him. 

“What happened?”

“Hellfire … sorry about that, I would have never used if if I’d known you were there.” The angel shivered, fully aware that things could have gone far worse.

“How long have I been out?”

“I’m not sure really. I may have … stopped time? Not quite certain what I did.”

“You what?” Aziraphale looked around them, confused. “Where are we?”

“I dunno, someplace quiet … maybe another dimension?” The angel gave him a disapproving look, but he couldn’t be bothered by it. Aziraphale was alive and that’s all that mattered. “I couldn’t think on the battlefield and I needed to heal you.”

The angel’s eyes went soft and round and full of gratitude. “Thank you, Crowley.”

He strove for an even tone of voice when he replied, “don’t mention it, can’t have it getting around to the home office,” but he was certain that his eyes were likely just as round and soft and full of tears as his angel’s for once and he couldn’t be bothered to care more about it.

**Author's Note:**

> If I'm honest, this scene was highly influenced from a scene in Dr. Who where the tenth doctor cradles a certain blond adversary/friend.
> 
> This is my first time writing for this fandom, but when we watched the Aziraphale/Crowley through the ages scenes I had to pause and shout at my screen incredulously that they didn't do anything with this historical moment and here we are.


End file.
